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A Student's Guide to Chaucer's Middle English (Review)

Language learning is difficult, no bones
about it; you have to memorize essentially to memorize some more and between
all of this effort you may say to yourself ‘what is the point?’ I have felt
this pain personally and so can sympathize deeply with anyone who has ever been
on the verge of giving up on learning another language or just could not take
it and did dump their dreams of learning out the window.

Part
of the struggle, other than memorizing, is having proper tools. To what plateau
can even the most determined individual reach without quality educational aids?
Can you honestly say that you will get very far in learning French or Mandarin
Chinese if you do not have a handy textbook that deciphers syntax, vowel and
consonant alterations, and general pronunciation and writing tips? How will you
know if you are correctly pronouncing words if you do not have an audio CD or
an online program to help you in mastering the basics so as to not massacre the
advanced?

One of the
contradictions of late capitalism is that consumerism fosters such a wide array
of products for nearly every conceivable desire, that we face an up-hill battle
to simply find the most helpful product. Sometimes we end up spending huge sums
of money just to find that text which de-mystifies what we had previously read
half a dozen times to no avail. Other times, however, we strike gold on the
first strike and find that Holy Grail of tools which we could not imagine going
without. I am lucky to say that in regards to my learning of Middle English, I
struck gold when I picked up a copy of Peter G. Beidler’s A Student Guide to Chaucer’s Middle English.

At first, I was on
the fence as to whether I should purchase Beidler’s text. It was a short text
at just fifty-five pages. The price, however, stood at a slightly obscene ten
dollars. Was such a short primer truly worth such a price? Could I not find
similar texts for a far better price-content ratio (relatively speaking)?
Perhaps I could, but perhaps not; at the time, however, I let my instinct
loose: I bought the guide. Hopefully the product description would not lie and
I would have my cherished beginner-level handbook to take me through the
wonders of Chaucer’s language. If not… then I dreaded the return trip to the
online superstore in another bout to find that introductory primer.

I can already hear
you asking, “Was the guide good? Was it worth the money?” Well, I am happy to
report that it most certainly was worth the money. In fact, it was worth every
penny and then some.

Beidler’s text is
one of those introductions which I wish existed for all dead languages and
linguistic inflections of dead languages. It tells you what you need to know,
when you need to know it. The author states that it was his goal to write a
dense yet easily accessible introduction to how Geoffrey Chaucer spoke and
wrote Middle English (ix). An introduction, in other words, which would allow
newcomers to know the nuance of Chaucer’s tongue without complexity being
sacrificed. A difficult calling if there ever was one!

But if anyone
could write such a guide then it is Beidler. A university educator of several
decades, he has an enviable amount of experience in speaking, reading, and
editing Chaucer’s works. In fact, the namesake of the little book—A Student
Guide to Chaucer’s Middle English—is
very apt: the text was written with Undergraduates in mind; indeed, the author
states that this work grew out of many generations of his Chaucer courses and through
many refinements as students offered their thoughts and as Beidler tweaked the
contents in response.

Reading Beidler’s
introduction will put newcomers at ease. Although it is a dense guide and there
are parts which readers will need to re-read several times and carefully
scrutinize in order to understand the proper way to use the book, actually
learning the content does not ever become overwhelming, despite the great
amount of material to learn.

Why? We can chalk
it up to several factors but it ultimately boils down to just how well the
guide is written. Beidler gives the reader the lowdown on Chaucer’s time and
his writing, some information on reading medieval manuscripts, but then quickly
moves to how Middle English is different from Old English and how it is different,
in turn, from Modern English. From here, he then moves on to the linguistic
minutia—what important Chaucerian words the newcomer should memorize, how
verbs, vowels, consonants, adverbs, diphthongs, and phonetics function in
middle English and more; Beidler gives a brief rundown on iambic pentameter,
gives the reader some handy tips on Chaucer’s use of Middle English, and
returns to phonetic inscription before assigning three exercises on said
inscription.

It sounds like a
lot, does it not? Well, you would be correct—because it is a lot!

During my initial
engagement with Beidler’s primer I was at a lost on certain segments; when it
came to phonetic inscription, for instance, I was at a particular loss of
words: why was he demanding that we inscribe the modern phonetics of a Middle
English word alongside its older counter-part? Was the phonetic symbols somehow
letters? Was there a difference in phonetic inscription between inscription for
vowels and consonants? How does scanning lines of Chaucer’s poetry assist us in
said phonetic inscription? And so on…

Again, I am happy
to report that I figured out all of these questions. Once I learned the answers
I even chided myself for asking them in the first place. Why? Because all of
the answers were there in the book, I just did not read closely enough during
my initial read-through; which brings me back to the idea of re-reading this
dense pamphlet—it is a necessity! Because so much information is crammed into
such a tight space, even Beidler’s usually informative style can be lost on the
observant reader if you do not pay attention to how concepts build upon
previous concepts. Said again, there is no wasted sentence in this
introduction—everything serves an illuminative purpose and it is up to you to
have keen enough eyes to carefully read and take-in said information so as to
effectively utilize the contents to your benefit.

It should be kept
in mind, however, that Beidler’s guide is not a general introduction to Middle
English. It is an introduction to how Chaucer used Middle English in what is
now called the London dialect. Beidler does not introduce the reader to any
other dialect; additionally, Beidler does not expend huge amounts of effort in
providing an elaborate genesis of Middle English; for lengthy, detailed
explanations of some of Middle English’s nuance, how it relates to Old English
and its evolution to Early Modern English and Modern English, how Chaucer’s
dialect differs from his contemporaries dialects and so on, you will need to
find a different text.

First and
foremost, Beidler is concerned with giving you informational summaries
concerning Chaucer’s Middle English; he is concerned with teaching you about
phonetic inscription; he disseminates some basic background information on how
Middle English relates to Old and Modern English, and he gives you some tips,
additional language learning resources, and warnings but he does not do much
else (for better or worse). Beidler is focused on Chaucer and with getting you
up to speed in reading Chaucer. He does not promise mastery but a familiarity,
a base for further learning. He does this through concise and well-worded
explanations of the most vital parts of the language; he may, at times, be a
bit vague, but I assure you, he captures that mixture of intellectual rigidity
and casual genius which is missing from far too many educational texts.

So no, Beidler’s
text is not by any means an end-all stop for learning Middle English. But, for
being able to hone in on such a specific aspect of Middle English literature
and authorship, Beidler’s pamphlet should be considered a modern cornerstone of
Chaucerian tools. I would even go as far as to say it is a must-buy, but this
is really a matter of opinion as there is many educational primers out there
which will teach you Middle English. What I can say is this: Beidler succeeds
in his stated goal.

At the end of the
day, Beidler instructs the novice with fluid care without abandoning the
inner-life of the subject he is lecturing on. He manages to keep the lesson
entertaining, does not bog down the reader in endless lines of dense, formal
text, all while imparting his pedagogical best, that which he obtained over
decades of Chaucer-oriented teaching. There is other introductions to Middle
English published by the elite of the academic world. Beidler’s casual
introduction may not be ranked among those lofty giants of Ivy, but his is
indispensable all the same.

Popular Posts

Lately, I was browsing around online and found another handy resource for aspiring medievalists.

Enter, Western Michigan University's Medieval Institute!

The site has links to an extensive book shop, scholarly journals, as well as a free download. See below for links.

General listing: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medievalpress/
Index of titles available for purchase: http://www.wmich.edu/medievalpublications/all-titles
The 'Medieval Globe' book(s): http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/ (Click on title(s) for free download)

Okay, that is all for now. Sometime soon I think that I would like to organize all of my resource links so that I, as well as you, have a concrete listing of reliable resources. Until then, we shall have to make due.